San Francisco – A U.S. court has upheld the convictions of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, and the company’s former president, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, for defrauding investors in the now-defunct blood testing startup once valued at $9 billion.
The ruling was issued by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which dismissed claims of legal errors during their separate trials in 2022. The panel’s decision reinforces the original guilty verdicts and sentences handed down to both Holmes and Balwani for their roles in misleading investors about Theranos’ technology and financial stability.
Holmes was convicted of fraud and conspiracy, leading to an 11-year and three-month prison sentence. Her former business partner and ex-romantic partner, Balwani, received a harsher sentence of 12 years and 11 months. Both were originally indicted in 2018 following widespread revelations about the fraudulent claims surrounding Theranos’ revolutionary blood-testing technology.
The court’s decision marks another milestone in the high-profile legal battle surrounding Theranos, a company once hailed as a groundbreaking force in the medical industry but ultimately exposed as one of the biggest corporate frauds in recent history.
